I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 15 Page 11
“Gah!”
He flinched briefly before collapsing to the ground.
“She knocked him out...?!”
But why? Wasn’t he a member of the extremists? I had a lot of questions, but no time to think. Yuuhi held a hand up, palm outward in our direction, and muttered a single word...
“Break.”
When she did, I felt something like a gust of wind brush my cheek.
Huh? What was that?
I could tell she had done something, but I had no idea what. I was at a loss. But in the midst of my confusion, Harissa seemed to figure it out.
“...Huh?! Be careful, everyone! The invisibility has been dispelled!”
“What?!”
Wait, the telepathy had been cut too? Was this Yuuhi’s doing?
“So you’re here already, Rekka Namidare. That was faster than I expected.”
“You know who I am, yet you’re not surprised to see me... I guess that means you really are the mastermind behind all this.”
“Mastermind? Hmph, is that what you’ve been calling me?” Yuuhi spat out boldly and hatefully.
There was so much I wanted to ask her, but it would all have to wait.
“Give me back my heroines!”
“...”
Yuuhi narrowed her eyes, not responding. She scanned the group of us, her gaze falling on L.
“So it was you that led them here, was it, L?”
“Shut up. You... You didn’t tell me anything. You just cast me aside. You don’t have any right to complain,” L said, glaring sharply at Yuuhi.
L was never informed about the attack the extremists had planned on the past, which was the start of all this. She took it as a sign that the extremists—that the mastermind—had abandoned her. She felt thrown away. Yuuhi, however, was the one frowning right now.
“You’re the one who has no right to complain, L.”
“What did you just say...?”
“Don’t you know, L? You’re already a heroine of this Rekka Namidare. You have been ever since the summer festival.”
“Huh?”
“I suppose you may not have realized it since you’re still in the middle of being saved. But given a little more time, you would have betrayed me of your own will.”
“...”
Yuuhi’s declaration left L at a loss for words. Whether her silence was because what Yuuhi said had struck a chord with her or because she was just that stunned at the accusation, I wasn’t sure.
“You seem awfully certain of yourself, Yuuhi,” the doctor suddenly interjected. “I’m surprised you have the gall to play it high-and-mighty after deceiving my precious L like you did.”
“If it isn’t the king of Laputa...”
“I’d love nothing more than to give you a piece of my mind right now, but there’s something else I have to ask first.”
“...”
Yuuhi showed no reaction to what the doctor said, which she took as a sign to continue.
“Is it possible that you know the whereabouts of our Rekka Namidare?”
Huh?
At first, I didn’t understand what the doctor was saying. I slowly replayed the sentence in my head... Wide-eyed, I looked back and forth between Yuuhi and the doctor.
“Wh-What do you mean by that?!”
“Remember how I told you there were two serious incidents that triggered the War of All?”
“Two triggers...”
I scanned back through my memories. The doctor had said that the first trigger for the War of All was the terrorist attack on the Greater Galactic Federation’s central congress. The second was the fact that my future self went missing.
“The real cause of the War of All was the disappearance of our Rekka Namidare, which started the rumors that one of the heroines was monopolizing him... And the reason they continued was because no one could prove otherwise. Not even Satsuki could locate Rekka with her Omniscient Magic.”
Yeah, that’s right. She’d said something like that before too. I remember thinking it was strange that... Wait, Satsuki couldn’t locate future Rekka with her magic? Just like... how she couldn’t locate the mastermind or the heroines either?
As I was turning all this over in my head, the doctor glared at Yuuhi.
“It only occurred to me today after all the time we’ve spent chasing you down... The thought that someone other than the current heroines might’ve been involved with the War of All from the beginning,” the doctor said calmly.
According to her theory, it was Yuuhi who had kidnapped future Rekka. And upon hearing this, Satsuki, Harissa, Lea, and Fam all narrowed their eyes sharply in her direction.
My heart was pounding so hard in my chest that it hurt. It couldn’t be... It just couldn’t, could it? I wasn’t even sure if I wanted her to be right or not. All I knew was that I was on the edge of my seat.
After several moments of tense silence, Yuuhi opened her mouth...
“I have nothing to say to you.”
And refused to give us an answer. I swear the temperature in the room dropped a couple of degrees.
“...Shall I force her to talk?”
Even big-hearted Lea was saying some pretty violent things now. But in the face of sheer murderous intent, Yuuhi didn’t even flinch.
“Hmph... I expected you lot would show up eventually the moment that artificial life form named R got in my way and let Rekka Namidare escape,” she said. “Did you really think I would just be waiting here unprepared?”
Yuuhi pressed some kind of switch hidden in the sleeve of her jacket, and when she did... a rip in the air next to her tore wide open.
“A warp?!” Fam exclaimed.
“No... That’s more like a gate to another world!” Harissa declared.
But Yuuhi faintly shook her head.
“Saying it’s a gate to another world is close... But you’ve still got it wrong. This rift is connected to the other side of the mirror. The side that you would normally never come into contact with.”
“The other side... of the mirror?”
“That’s right. The space inside this rift is a pocket dimension not connected to any other world. I can hide anything in here, people included, and never be discovered by anyone.”
“What?!”
The Magic of Omniscience accessed the Akashic record, which was the annals of history across all worlds. But if what Yuuhi was saying was true, then the mirror dimension wasn’t part of any world... That’s why Satsuki hadn’t been able to learn anything about it with her magic. That... That had to mean...
“Come on out,” Yuuhi called.
When she did, several figures emerged from the rift.
“Wha?!”
I doubted my eyes.
“Huh?! I-It’s us?!”
I was surprised, but the future heroines standing next to me were in downright shock. It was because we recognized the people who’d emerged from the tear.
Satsuki. Iris. Harissa. Lea. Rosalind. Fam. Corona.
They were all heroines we knew well.
“Why are they following her orders...?” I muttered in disbelief, searching for a reason.
When I squinted, straining my eyes to get a better look at Yuuhi, I could see she was wearing an earring with a small red jewel. It... It looked familiar.
That’s a Doppel Stone! It can copy magical and psychic powers!
Come to think of it, the doctor had said Yuuhi used a Doppel Stone to wipe my memory of the heroines. If she had one with that kind of power, I could understand why the heroines were following her orders.
She must’ve copied Rosalind’s charm power into it!
Once I put two and two together, I could see it plain as day. The heroines all had a glassy, dazed look in their eyes... They were clearly being controlled. That meant I’d have to give them some kind of shock to snap them out of it. Yuuhi likely knew that, which was why she’d brought out the heroines with the highest combat potential. Granted, she’d brought out Satsuki and Harissa
too.
“Go.”
With a simple order from Yuuhi, the past heroines all moved to attack us in a rather systematic way. Past Satsuki came for future Satsuki, past Lea came for future Lea, and so on. Basically, the girls were attacking themselves.
“Crap! I’m sure you all already know this, but make sure you don’t hurt yourselves!” the doctor yelled.
The doctor once said that the greatest weakness of people from the future was that they couldn’t attack people from the past, right?!
It wasn’t that they couldn’t attack, per se. For example, future Satsuki could kill her past self if she needed to... But then she would disappear too. Even if she didn’t go that far, just injuring her past self could do lasting harm that would come back to bite her. In other words, the future heroines couldn’t seriously fight their past selves. And that put them at a disadvantage. The mind-controlled heroines of the past weren’t pulling any punches. It was an utterly one-sided fight.
Now, as for Iris, Rosalind, and Corona who didn’t have their future selves to fight...
“Erk!”
Naturally, they came after me!
Of all the heroines, it had to be the three of them!
I wouldn’t stand a chance against any one of them.
If I have a prayer right now, it’s getting at least one of them on my side... But how am I going to manage that with the three of them attacking me together?!
As I racked my brain, they drew menacingly nearer.
“Tch!”
Who should I aim for? The easiest one to shake up... didn’t seem like it’d be Corona. That meant I had to go for Iris or Rosalind. I desperately tried to remember a time I’d seen either one of them completely shaken... And the first thing that came to mind was that time I accidentally grabbed Iris’s chest.
“Here goes...!”
It was quite possibly the worst thing I could have thought of in the heat of the moment, but I didn’t have time to come up with a plan B.
Iris! I’m sorry!
I set my sights on the alien princess. Rosalind and Corona were coming at me from the left and right respectively. I would duck under their attacks and charge at Iris to bring her back to her senses. That was the plan, anyway. Considering the difference in physical ability between me and the heroines, however, my chances of succeeding were practically nil. But I still had to try. It had taken me five seconds just to think things through this far. There was no time left. All I had to do now was move forward... But when I looked up, I could see dark energy gathering in Corona’s palm.
“Wait... That’s unfair!”
I had no way of blocking a ranged attack. Corona unleashed her spell without mercy. I reflexively raised my arms to shield myself, but I knew it wasn’t going to save me! I was about to get obliterated!
“What are you doing, dumbass?!” L shouted, throwing up a barrier to block Corona’s magic.
“L! You saved—?!”
Before I could even finish thanking her, I gasped. A red mist was encroaching, obscuring my vision.
Rosalind?!
I covered my eyes immediately. Visibility within the red mist was zero. I was practically paralyzed, not knowing which way to go or what to do...
“Rekka! Get down!” the doctor suddenly shouted through the fog.
“!”
I huddled down on the floor as instructed, and not a moment too soon. Rosalind’s arm went sailing through the air where my head had just been.
“...”
She looked down at me with lifeless eyes before dropping an axe kick on me.
“Whoa!”
I threw myself to the side, rolling to get out of the way.
Ka-bam!
The floor tiles crumbled where Rosalind’s heel forcefully met the ground. Realizing she’d missed, she transformed once again into red mist. But...
“Bad move, Rosalind!” I could hear the doctor shout as white smoke began coursing through the red mist.
I watched in surprise as the mist crackled and solidified in place almost instantly. It was like the doctor had used some kind of freezing spray on it.
“I’ll unfreeze her later, so just hold on for now,” the doctor said as she made her way over to me.
I see. The doctor isn’t one of my heroines, so she has no past self here to fight.
The same applied to L. The two of them would be the key to overcoming this.
“Rekka, at this rate, things are only going to get worse.”
“I know.”
The heroines fighting their past selves right now had it even harder than I did. Their past selves were going all out, but all they could do was stay on the defensive. As long as they couldn’t fight back, it was only a matter of time before they were defeated. That meant now was the time... While the past heroines were still occupied, I had to make a decisive move. And that would be...
“You...!”
I turned to look at Yuuhi.
“...”
And she was looking right back at me. We both knew it. That this match would be decided with either my or Yuuhi’s defeat.
“The earring...” I muttered.
“What about it?” the doctor asked.
“If we can do something about the Doppel Stone embedded in it, Yuuhi should lose her control over the heroines. Once she does, we’ll have this in the bag.”
“That may be true, but how are we going to do that?”
“I have an idea.”
▽
“Lea, connect us with telepathy one more time!” I yelled loudly.
Yuuhi had shut it down earlier with her mysterious power.
“It’s up!” Lea’s replied telepathically.
“Everyone, listen up!”
I quickly told everyone my plan telepathically so that Yuuhi couldn’t hear it, but she wasn’t going to just sit there and let us get away with that.
“Break!”
Just like that, our telepathic link was cut again. It didn’t do anything to the past heroines, however. They were still fighting at full strength under Yuuhi’s control.
Tch, so she can pick what abilities she cancels! How annoying!
It seemed Yuuhi could pick and choose which powers she targeted with her break ability. That was cheating on a whole new level of unfairness... It was probably how she’d avoided detection via Satsuki’s Magic of Omniscience until now too.
But unlucky for her, my plan was short and sweet. There were just two steps, and I’d already finished telling the girls everything.
“Ealim Nekram!” Harissa shouted, casting her invisibility spell over us once more.
Once they lost sight of us, the past heroines were stopped in their tracks. This was step one.
“...”
“...”
L and I made eye contact. In accordance with step two, she pulled a certain device out from her sleeve.
“Break!”
When Yuuhi used her mysterious power again, the invisibility was lifted. We reappeared as one would expect, but not everything was as it had been. Something was different about Corona, who’d been facing off against L.
“?!”
Iris took one look at her and froze. That was because Corona no longer looked like Corona... Indeed, thanks to L’s hologem, she now looked like me.
“Hah!”
Iris, following the orders she’d been given under the charm, attacked “Rekka Namidare” as she perceived him. Corona, however, had no idea what was happening. She was suddenly being attacked by her ally, and without any mirrors in the room, she would never know why. Moreover, the hologem generated a disguise with science and technology rather than psychic powers and magic. Yuuhi’s cancellation ability would, hopefully, be ineffective against it.
While Iris and Corona were tricked into dueling each other, L, the doctor, and I were free to do as we pleased. We took the opportunity to make a break for Yuuhi.
“Yuuhi!”
“...”
I called out to her, but she on
ly glared at me. There was a keen glint in her eye.
“So you’re the same as ever... You never give up. I should’ve known. It runs in the family.”
I ignored Yuuhi’s words as I clenched my hand into a fist.
“Chirika! Shirley!” she called.
“What?!”
At Yuuhi’s beckoning, Chirika and Shirley jumped out of the rift to the mirror dimension. Chirika immediately sprung at L, while Shirley went after the doctor. Both of them ran past me to get to their targets.
“Tch!”
“Shirley, no!”
L and the doctor both had to come to a halt to deal with the new incoming threats.
I see! She’s wary of me returning them to their senses, so she won’t bring them out unless she has to!
That meant I had to settle things before she brought out any more reinforcements. We could really be in trouble here!
I continued to run for Yuuhi, who clenched her fists too. It was clear neither one of us was backing down. The moment we were in range of each other, we both swung. It was almost like we were mirror images of each other.
“...!”
“...!”
Fist met fist with terrific impact on both sides. It staggered both of us, but the moment of reprieve gave Yuuhi just the opportunity she needed.
“Rekka Namidare, I’ve prepared the perfect opponent to defeat you.”
“And who would that be?”
“An old friend of yours, you could say.”
At that, Yuuhi summoned someone else from the rift...
That blue hair. That old-school military uniform. That tiny build. That unreadable face.
Yuuhi was right. This was a good friend of mine.
“R?!”
When I called her name, R looked at me as expressionless as ever.
“Enemy strength confirmed. Elimination target acquired,” she declared quietly.
“What are you saying, R?! Elimination target?! Don’t you know who I am?!”
“There’s no use,” Yuuhi spat coldly. “After her system ceased functioning at a binary level, I completely rewrote everything. She’s no longer one of yours.”
“What?!”
Yuuhi’s words shook me greatly.